


disrepair

by KathrynShadow



Category: DC Extended Universe
Genre: 5 Times, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, for a cryptid Bruce sure does get spooked easily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 22:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15783216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathrynShadow/pseuds/KathrynShadow
Summary: "Would you like to assume command?"





	disrepair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [susiecarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/gifts).



> had to sneak one more in before the end lol

i.

_ “Would you like to assume command?” _

Bruce whirls on nothing, dropping into a crouch with his hand on a batarang before his eyes even take in the fact that he’s alone. The ship is still dark, he verifies, flicking his night vision lenses off and then back on; the interior remains silent but for the low ambient hum at the edges of his hearing. There’s no one there, but the voice hadn’t come from a particular location, which must mean—

“This vessel no longer has a chain of command or any current ongoing instructions,” the voice continues, from everywhere and nowhere at once. “Major functions cannot resume until this is rectified. Would you like to assume command?”

It’s a trap. It has to be. What backwards system would create, without guile, a complex and powerful machine that would innocently follow anyone at all once its first crew went missing? Nothing Bruce has seen of Kryptonians indicates that they would make such an obvious oversight—at least, not without the intention to use it as bait.

This ship belongs to Superman, from what Bruce has learned. There’s no reason he wouldn’t put such a protocol in place for someone who meant him harm.

“Please provide an answer,” the ship says. The voice is neutral, clipped, a reasonable approximation of a woman’s voice in a generic Midwestern flat. A flashlight flickers over the wall.

“Stop talking,” the Bat growls, sinking deeper into the shadows.

“Is that a command?” the ship asks primly, and he did  _ not _ come here to be made fun of by an alien vessel before being captured by the US military—

“Ship?” A human voice, male, slight twang to it but not one strong enough to place. The flashlights get brighter. “Who are you talking to?”

The hum deepens for a moment before evening out. For a single, insane moment, it sounds like a sigh. “Unknown,” says the ship.

“‘Unknown,’ she says,” mutters someone else. Older, less interested. “She’s losing it, Kowalski. Leave it alone.”

The ship doesn’t say anything else, and the Bat doesn’t let himself breathe until the footsteps fade back into the distance and he can make his own escape.

He isn’t tailed back, but he can’t shake the feeling of being watched until the entire compound gets swallowed by the haze over the Bay.

 

ii.

“Would you like to assume command?”

Batman pauses, his hand halfway to one of the endless arching doors. It’s been a month since the last time he risked infiltrating the compound; by all accounts, the ship had been no more active than it had been before, and there were no reports of his first attempt. Whatever its reasons, it either hadn’t successfully communicated or hadn’t  _ tried _ to tell anyone.

He was hoping it wouldn’t bother asking again, or that the battery of tests would have drained it enough that it wouldn’t have the energy. Without a security system he can understand or trace, he can’t try his normal strategy of finding or making blind spots to slip through; the only chance he has for remaining unnoticed is the ship just not bothering to speak up.

If it’s talking to him again, that doesn’t seem likely.  _ But. _ It isn’t the surround-sound, ship-wide announcement it was the first time. The voice hasn’t changed in tone or pitch, but it’s much quieter. Audible, understandable, but sans echo; he can’t imagine it extends much farther than the first turn of the hallway.

It can’t be the ship trying to be considerate. The only reason it would have for trying to communicate without (noticeably) tipping off security to Bruce’s presence has to be just trying to trick him into answering.

So he doesn’t. But he doesn’t leave, either.

The vessel’s layout is strange and sprawling; he hadn’t managed to map out much of it on his first attempt, but he’s almost certain that it’s shifted. Hallways smaller, rooms bigger, twists and alcoves for deeper shadows just big enough to envelop him.

Potentially literally, if the ship has been redesigning itself. He steers clear.

“Are you looking for something?” the ship asks. “Certain areas of the ship have been shut down or reabsorbed for maintenance. If—”

“Nothing,” Bruce interrupts.

The ship waits a beat, two. “Very well,” it says curtly, and falls silent.

 

iii.

His usual entrance is closed when he gets there, but it opens at the first touch of his fingertips to the seam. Bruce hesitates at the threshold, unsure of how to take that, but he can’t empirically prove that it wouldn’t open up for just anyone. And it hasn’t kidnapped or devoured anyone else thus far.

“Holding this airlock open is a drain on power,” says the ship, weird and tinny from outside but still as quiet as it was the last time. “If you do not wish to enter, please specify.”

It feels convenient, but he steps up the ramp anyway. “Where is the rest of the power going?” he asks, tensing as the hull slides shut again behind him.

“This vessel was severely damaged following the Black Zero event,” it informs him. “Power is being deviated to keep critical components from malfunctioning and harming the temporary crew.”

He knows he shouldn’t keep talking to it, but he’s gotten reliable information from less likely sources. “You haven’t tried to repair it?”

“Repair would require quarantining the sections as they were—” a pause, a whisper of a change in the background hum— “regrown,” the ship settles on. “This act would disrupt the work of the temporary crew and cannot begin without an order from an acting—” another moment of hesitation— “captain or equivalent commander.”

An actual concern for the humans inhabiting it, or a pre-programmed set of instructions to keep from harming people? “Why not pick a commander from the temporary crew?”

“Their places are not compatible.” The ship pauses, going almost silent for a moment before speaking again. “They are in conflicting—” and that sound is too smooth to be a glitch, so it must be a word the ship is having trouble translating. “If their commanders were to arrive, and were in a compatible…”

“Caste?” Bruce guesses. “Track?”

The ship considers its options. “Track,” it settles on, but it doesn’t seem completely satisfied with it. “Then they could take the role.”

“What makes you think I’m an option?” he asks, making his way deeper into the ship.

“Wayne Enterprises’ research and applied sciences divisions exist for a similar purpose as this ship.”

Bruce doesn’t breathe, holding still, listening. The ship is still quiet, but any volume is too high a decibel for it to just—

“Vital signs fluctuating,” the ship says. “The medical wing is currently damaged. Would you like to assume command?”

“No,” he says sharply. “You know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“How?” If he’s made a mistake, if  _ Superman _ knows—

“Height, build, body weight, partial facial analysis, retinal scans on file in—”

“Stop,” Bruce interrupts. “Why did you look?”

The ship pauses, already low ambient light dimming for a second. “Everyone who enters this vessel is accounted for.”

As if that’s a helpful answer. “To whom?”

“No one. There is no commanding officer to relay relevant information to.”

He can’t trust it. He can’t trust any of it. “Let me out,” he says, turning; and he expects the ship to argue about it or complain about ordering it about without the appropriate rank, but the airlock slides open as easily as it ever did.

“This vessel does not share irrelevant information,” the ship says quietly. “Your identity is not relevant to anyone.”

It gives Bruce pause, but not enough for him to stay.

 

iv.

Bruce, quite frankly, wants very little to do with the ship at this point. He wants other people involved even less.

It makes sense for Wayne Enterprises to want to get involved very much. He doesn’t even have to ask Luke to start poking their collective noses into it (the younger Fox inherited quite a few traits from his father, but the observational skills are simultaneously the most useful and annoying); and, in shorter order than he’d prefer, they’re both invited to come and look around the lab.

Bruce could make his excuses. He’s brushed off more important things before for lesser reasons. But then, he’s certain the ship will notice if his people show up and he doesn’t, and if it asks…

Going seems less risky than staying, and Alfred would love the excuse to have him out of the house, Bruce is sure.

He’s also sure to behave himself during the initial tour, as much for Luke’s sake as anything else; the young engineer would find a way to pacifistically kill him if Bruce managed to ruin their chances outright. (He wasn’t in Metropolis when the battle was crumbling it. It’s not personal, for him; he has no reason not to be thrilled at the thought of playing with alien technology.)

Bruce doesn’t touch anything that doesn’t look like it’s supposed to be touched. He lets Luke do most of the talking; his genuine enthusiasm will leave a better impression than whatever Bruce can piece together in its stead, anyway. And when the time comes to step onto the ship itself, he doesn’t hesitate.

It hasn’t changed much, except it seems slightly dimmer, the color of the arching hallways edging closer to a dull slate. He can’t guess whether it’s a reflection of the ship’s disrepair, or the preferences of the local scientists, or even the AI’s own mood; and he doesn’t bother dwelling on it. (Much. If it was already hurting—if it was already  _ damaged,  _ how much worse is it now, if it’s still not allowed to enact any of the disruptive deep repairs?

Why would it matter?)

It feels wrong, walking around the ship in a few layers of fabric. It feels… more wrong, somehow, getting a couple of minutes through the tour without so much as a peep from the ever-present AI. He actually begins to wonder if it’s deactivated itself, or been deactivated, when his guide leads them into a central room and the apparently sourceless lights start getting brighter. The hum goes up in pitch by just a couple of notes.

“Mr. Wayne,” it says, and he wonders why it’s even bothering with human social titles. “Would you like to assume command?”

He feels eyes on him and resolutely doesn’t look at any of them. “Well,” he says, with a half-smile at nothing in particular, “hello to you too.”

He’s not sure it was the right answer to give, but he doesn’t know what else he could have done.

 

v.

It’s almost completely dark. There’s no humming anymore, only a thick, stifling silence, an unnatural whistle from the wind carving through the hole Doomsday tore out.

(Don’t.)

Bruce isn’t expecting anything from this. The ship is another corpse to look at, to dwell on, to burn into his eyes until he understands exactly how badly he fucked up; and then, as is his wont, to honor through vengeance on the people who killed it.

(But then, there’s a sound.)

“Nightwing—N—N—”

Bruce freezes. He doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about, but it’s  _ talking,  _ and he’s not about to interrogate it when it’s dying. “I’m here,” he says. “I’m here, it’s me.”

“Sys—N—” A sparking whirr, the synthetic voice going staticky around the edges.

“What do you need me to do?” Assuming it can even get the words out in the first place, assuming that he  _ can  _ do anything—

“Command,” it manages (and he could have fixed all of this months ago, he could have—he could have at least just  _ talked  _ to it).

Bruce takes a slow breath. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Do what you need to do.”

It’s quiet for long enough that he starts to worry again, but then there’s a grinding crunch, and a lurch to the side, the sound of doors closing over cables; and: “thank you.”


End file.
